This is America. To paraphrase Merle Haggard, if you’re burnin’ down my country, Hos, you’re walkin’ on the fightin’ side of Me! And if you are preaching in the good name of the Church that the only Christian response is to wet-nurse protesters and rioters, because after all, they have the right to burn down my country, and Jesus taught that we must love one another; if you are preaching in the good name of the Church, that the President is a tyrant because he had police clear Lafayette Square with tear gas, you are rankling my ire, but in a different sort of way: you are sullying the reputation of the Church.

Just because we are Christians, that does not mean that we must put up with wanton, destructive, criminal behavior. Maybe people need to read, for instance, Romans:

Let every soul be subject to higher powers: for there is no power but from God: and those that are, are ordained of God.
Therefore he that resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. And they that resist, purchase to themselves damnation.
For princes are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good: and thou shalt have praise from the same.
For he is God's minister to thee, for good. But if thou do that which is evil, fear: for he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is God's minister: an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil. Wherefore be subject of necessity, not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake. (Romans 13:1-5)

And Isaiah:

I looked about, and there was none to help: I sought, and there was none to give aid: and my own arm hath saved for me, and my indignation itself hath helped me.
And I have trodden down the people in my wrath, and have made them drunk in my indignation, and have brought down their strength to the earth. (Isaiah 63: 5-6)

And Luke:

When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, did you want any thing?
But they said: Nothing. Then said he unto them: But now he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise a scrip; and he that hath not, let him sell his coat, and buy a sword.
For I say to you, that this that is written must yet be fulfilled in me: And with the wicked was he reckoned. For the things concerning me have an end. (Luke 22: 35-37)

I stand with the President 100 percent, because I oppose demons of criminal violence, murder and mindlessness, Antichrist, demons of anarchy, robbery, thievery, wanton behavior and rioting. And if never-Trump, politicized Episcopates and priests want to know what to do, besides turn the RC religion into a political organization, there is an answer. America is under siege at the hands of people that apparently have demons. Maybe some of them will eventually be looking for deliverance. Others are dispossessed and ruined, either by the lockdowns, or the riots. They need help. There is plenty of real ministry to do in America. And to be effective, it has to start at the level of the Episcopacy, where exorcists are commissioned.

Inasmuch as ministers attend riots to minister to people, that’s fine with me. It is not fine with me if they then demonize the President, inasmuch as police rough them up. The police have a very difficult job, when trying to restore order. Don’t expect it to always be pretty; they don’t have time or personnel to make it pretty, because people are tearing stuff up. You are not at a church picnic. You are at a riot!

I for one am proud of my President for having the courage to make a clear statement in defense of Christianity, of Churches and of our country in general. Some, such as the Honorable Senator Charles Schumer, (D-NY), found fault with the President’s inspiring, Pattonesque walk. Sen. Schumer urged the U.S. Senate to adopt a resolution condemning the President for it. Schumer seized upon the police’s use of tear gas to disperse the protesters. That’s just the Honorable Schumer trying to score political points, as usual. Kellyanne Conway gave him what for. But the Honorable Schumer is not the only high-ranking hypocrite in Washington, DC, or in the U.S., that is using the riots to try to score political points. I am sad to say that some Episcopates and priests are also preaching like never-Trump, political hypocrites, not like Christians.

Again, it is the job and the duty of the prince to restore peace and tranquility. If you want to tangle with the sword that he wields, you are free to. But it is really stupid. RC Episcopates and priests do not exactly, that I know of, come to the defense of rioters. Instead, some of Them bash and demonize President Trump, the chief protector of peace and tranquility.

I am not arguing that some Episcopates and Priests want chaos and anarchy. However, inasmuch as They have become leftist political activists, They sign on to Obama/Clinton agenda. In this case, those agenda seek, among other evils, the “complete chaos” that Pius XII warned us about in 1947:

Those who deliberately and rashly plan to incite the masses to tumult, sedition, or infringement of the liberty of others are certainly not helping to relieve the poverty of the people but are rather increasing it by fomenting mutual hatred and disturbing the established order; this can even lead to complete chaos. Factional strife "has been and will be to many nations a greater calamity than war itself, than famine or disease." (Pius XII. Optatissima Pax, 5)

The Obama/Clinton $machine also wants the demonization of President Trump. Inasmuch as Episcopates or priests sign on to Obama-Clinton agenda, they make themselves look really sinister and anti-ministerial. Sure, They might acquire social virtue in the eyes of some. But in my eyes, and in the eyes of many Americans, They acquire the opposite of social virtue. Some of us can hardly help but tally up Their social vice score, that is, the extent to which Their defining of political doctrine as divine pollutes holy Doctrine, and causes “scandal concerning faith” (St. Thomas, ibid.). It really is impossible to ignore.

You have perhaps heard of the proverbial woman, stranded on the rooftop of her house, surrounded by swirling floodwaters, waiting to be rescued by Jesus. A neighbor comes by in a skiff, and invites her down off the roof. But she says, “No thanks. I am waiting to be rescued by Jesus!” A motor lifeboat comes alongside, and the coxswain says, “Jump on board!” But she says, “No thanks. I am waiting to be rescued by Jesus!” Then a rescue helicopter drops a basket to her. She waves them off: “I am waiting to be rescued by Jesus!” Then the flood overwhelms the house, and the woman drowns. Jesus appears before her, and she asks, “Lord, why didn’t you rescue me from the flood?” Jesus replies, “I sent you a skiff, a motor lifeboat and a helicopter, but you refused.”

Some Episcopates and priests are sort of like the proverbial woman. They reject the help that the good Lord sends, because it comes in the form of President Trump, and They are leftist ideologues. They say to this effect, “No thanks. I am waiting to be helped by Barack Obama and the DNC!” Like the proverbial woman, They double-down on their religious convictions, except that in Their cases, Their convictions are more political than religious.

Some Episcopates and priests bash the President as if he were a piñata. This is to virtue signal to social doctrine politicos: “See? We are bashing President Trump. We are good people, just like you, who are bashing President Trump! Give us some social virtue points, please.”

The sign in front of the boarded-up St. John’s Church reads, “All are welcome”. It does not say, “All are welcome except President Trump”. Even so, President Trump is not welcome there. The Episcopal bishop of Washington, DC, the Right Reverend Mariann Budde, made that clear, when she said that she was “outraged” by his presence there. She also is virtue signaling to social doctrine politicos: “See, I am bashing President Trump. Aren’t I a wonderful person? I am so cool, just like you! Give me virtue points, please.”

The fallacy that men acquire virtue from criminals enjoys a certain degree of popularity, even among some Catholic religious. There is an article, for instance, from America Magazine, accusing President Trump of trying to “drag the Church into a culture war”, and arguing, “We should not let him.”

Maybe the Church needs to again acquire the time-honored practice of ordaining fishermen and working men, instead of academy grads only. Some of us at least know donkey dung from Kiwi shoe polish.

Every Christian is baptised into exactly the kind of culture war that afflicts us today. Trump did not pull anyone into this war between good and evil, that works itself out in the culture. Jesus did, Who instructed His Apostles, “Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matth. 28:19). Every baptised Christian is at war with the devil. This is why we used to call ourselves Church Militant. Some didn’t get that memo that comes with baptism. So, St. John Paul II made it crystal clear to us that we are in a culture war.

In Evangelium Vitae (EV), the saint wrote of a culture of death (EV 12) that opposes both life and innocence, and of a culture of life that he hoped the RC Church would become. It is in the culture, be it of death or life, that we fail to learn and live Christian morality, or that we learn and live it. Today, some at America Mag. want us to believe that holy Church is somehow aloof from the culture war—or was aloof, before the evil Trump dragged us into it. But holy Church has never been aloof from the culture war:

...The State is no longer the "common home" where all can live together on the basis of principles of fundamental equality, but is transformed into a tyrant State, which arrogates to itself the right to dispose of the life of the weakest and most defenceless members, from the unborn child to the elderly, in the name of a public interest which is really nothing but the interest of one part. The appearance of the strictest respect for legality is maintained, at least when the laws permitting abortion and euthanasia are the result of a ballot in accordance with what are generally seen as the rules of democracy. Really, what we have here is only the tragic caricature of legality; the democratic ideal, which is only truly such when it acknowledges and safeguards the dignity of every human person, is betrayed in its very foundations: "How is it still possible to speak of the dignity of every human person when the killing of the weakest and most innocent is permitted? In the name of what justice is the most unjust of discriminations practised: some individuals are held to be deserving of defence and others are denied that dignity?" When this happens, the process leading to the breakdown of a genuinely human co-existence and the disintegration of the State itself has already begun.

To claim the right to abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, and to recognize that right in law, means to attribute to human freedom a perverse and evil significance: that of an absolute power over others and against others. This is the death of true freedom: "Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin" (Jn 8:34).

"And from your face I shall be hidden" (Gen 4:14): the eclipse of the sense of God and of man

In seeking the deepest roots of the struggle between the "culture of life" and the "culture of death", we cannot restrict ourselves to the perverse idea of freedom mentioned above. We have to go to the heart of the tragedy being experienced by modern man: the eclipse of the sense of God and of man, typical of a social and cultural climate dominated by secularism, which, with its ubiquitous tentacles, succeeds at times in putting Christian communities themselves to the test. Those who allow themselves to be influenced by this climate easily fall into a sad vicious circle: when the sense of God is lost, there is also a tendency to lose the sense of man, of his dignity and his life; in turn, the systematic violation of the moral law, especially in the serious matter of respect for human life and its dignity, produces a kind of progressive darkening of the capacity to discern God's living and saving presence. (EV 20-21)

The saint wrote of how “when the sense of God is lost”, there follows a loss of the “sense of man, of his dignity and his life; in turn, the systematic violation of the moral law...” The saint did not limit this phenomenon to abortion and euthanasia. It applies to other cultural evils as well. One such cultural evil is when Episcopates and priests preach human, political doctrines as divine. Inasmuch as They do that, it seems to me that They have already lost “the sense of God”, and They are responsible for some of the flock also losing it.

For instance, what do you call these dismal and destructive riots that we are witnessing? A sacred exercise of Constitutional rights?

I call them a “systematic violation of the moral law”. I call them planned anarchy. They are the opposite of the very tranquility and security that government can bring, and that are the main reasons for the existence of government. Anarchy attacks tranquility and security. How, then, does any Christian religious become an enemy of the good prince—the one that tries to dispel rioting and anarchy, and restore tranquility? It is as if their “sense of God”, and then, their “sense of man” have indeed vanished. Maybe they have been sucked into the whirlpool of worldly, anti-American, anti-Trump, leftist doctrine.

The Archdiocese of Washington, DC wrote this:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Here is a statement from Washington Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory regarding the planned visit today from the president at the Saint John Paul II National Shrine:

I find it baffling and reprehensible that any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated in a fashion that violates our religious principles, which call us to defend the rights of all people even those with whom we might disagree. Saint Pope John Paul II was an ardent defender of the rights and dignity of human beings. His legacy bears vivid witness to that truth. He certainly would not condone the use of tear gas and other deterrents to silence, scatter or intimidate them for a photo opportunity in front of a place of worship and peace. (The Most Reverend Wilton D. Gregory, Archbishop of Washington, DC)

The Most Reverend Gregory was suggesting that the Executive Director of the Shrine deny to the President and his Catholic wife, Melania, “the rights of all people” that The Most Reverend Gregory says he is called to defend. It is to the Executive Director’s credit that he permitted the visit to go ahead, as had been planned before the President’s horrible, insufferable walk across Lafayette Square.

Oh, the horror! The President taking a walk to a church! And carrying a Bible! Eeeeee!

The President and Melania have every right to visit the St. John Paul II shrine, any time they want. They also have the right to walk across Lafayette Square without being mobbed, and stand in front of St. John’s Church, holding a Bible, anytime they want. Remember, this is America, where we have freedom of religion. This is not the PRC. Since They argue that the President was wrong to take a walk across the square, then what are They arguing, that none of us have the right to hold up a Bible in front of a Church in the midst of a riot wherein rioters tried to torch that same church?

Of course not. That is not at all what They argue. They are making Their usual, fallacious argument: that it was wrong because Trump did it. If Joe Biden had done what Trump did, They would have praised it as a profile in courage.

Again, I reject the argument that, because we are Christian, we can’t do anything to counter the senseless violence. On the contrary, I think that it’s high time we kicked some butt. The thugs, thieves, robbers and murderers have no right whatsoever to burn our cities down. If all that happens to them is that they get tear gassed, they are fortunate.

The Most Reverend Gregory virtue signaled about how “reprehensible” the Saint John Paul II Shrine is for allowing “itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated in a fashion that violates our religious principles...” What religious principles? Or, since when is it against Catholic religious principles for a Christian President and his Catholic wife to visit a Catholic shrine? Since the Most Reverend Archbishop says so? Is he making up Catholic principles on the fly? Has virtue signaling really become that important to some in the Episcopacy?

I am afraid so. Maybe it was just an aberration from Archbishop Gregory. I have never met him or seen him in person. All that I know about him is what he wrote above. I am sure that there are things about him that I would admire; I just don’t know of any, because I have learnt next to nothing about him. I am criticizing only one unfortunate little statement that he made.

President Trump has been inspirational. He at least took a walk to a besieged Church and elevated a Bible. He pushed back the perimeter to two blocks, as if to say, “You will not pass!” He at least got photographed at the shrine of St. John Paul II. I am of course ignoring the leftist narrative against him. Maybe I need to pay attention to it, so that I can earn some social virtue credit:

Oh, how evil. How utterly despicable and egrigeous, Trump walking to a church, holding a Bible! But have no fear; some Episcopates are smearing Trump, holy Church’s best friend, just to gain social virtue. So inspirational.

Okay, maybe that won’t get me any social virtue credit. I just thought I would give it a try.

The Most Reverend Gregory wrote that St. John Paul II would frown on Trump:

Saint Pope John Paul II was an ardent defender of the rights and dignity of human beings. His legacy bears vivid witness to that truth. He certainly would not condone the use of tear gas and other deterrents to silence, scatter or intimidate them for a photo opportunity in front of a place of worship and peace.

I disagree. I think that St. John Paul II would frown on the rioters. Yes, people have inherent rights from God, and can obtain dignity from Him. But they put their rights and any dignity that they may possess on the line when they decide to “tear stuff up”, (that is almost, but not quite the way that truck drivers say it), or burn stuff down. People are free to commit crimes, but there are consequences, both temporal and eternal. Some Episcopates are preaching to this effect: “Look at Us! We bash and demonize the prince with the sword that would restore peace and tranquility! Aren’t We cool? Be good followers now, and bestow you social virtue on Us!” This is appeasement; it has never been a legitimate Catholic teaching. Let’s again read Saint John Paul II:

Certain currents of modern thought have gone so far as to exalt freedom to such an extent that it becomes an absolute, which would then be the source of values. This is the direction taken by doctrines which have lost the sense of the transcendent or which are explicitly atheist. The individual conscience is accorded the status of a supreme tribunal of moral judgment which hands down categorical and infallible decisions about good and evil. To the affirmation that one has a duty to follow one's conscience is unduly added the affirmation that one's moral judgment is true merely by the fact that it has its origin in the conscience. But in this way the inescapable claims of truth disappear, yielding their place to a criterion of sincerity, authenticity and "being at peace with oneself", so much so that some have come to adopt a radically subjectivistic conception of moral judgment.

As is immediately evident, the crisis of truth is not unconnected with this development. Once the idea of a universal truth about the good, knowable by human reason, is lost, inevitably the notion of conscience also changes. Conscience is no longer considered in its primordial reality as an act of a person's intelligence, the function of which is to apply the universal knowledge of the good in a specific situation and thus to express a judgment about the right conduct to be chosen here and now. Instead, there is a tendency to grant to the individual conscience the prerogative of independently determining the criteria of good and evil and then acting accordingly. Such an outlook is quite congenial to an individualist ethic, wherein each individual is faced with his own truth, different from the truth of others. Taken to its extreme consequences, this individualism leads to a denial of the very idea of human nature.

These different notions are at the origin of currents of thought which posit a radical opposition between moral law and conscience, and between nature and freedom. (Veritatis Splendor, 32)

The Most Reverend Gregory and the religious at America Mag. seem to be conforming to, and preaching, an “individualist ethic”—a subjective one that is anti-Trump and never-Trump—rather than adhering to “universal truth”. And the rioters have apparently accorded to their individual consciences, “the status of a supreme tribunal of moral judgment which hands down categorical and infallible decisions about good and evil.” It’s what rioters do. The saint continues:

Although each individual has a right to be respected in his own journey in search of the truth, there exists a prior moral obligation, and a grave one at that, to seek the truth and to adhere to it once it is known. As Cardinal John Henry Newman, that outstanding defender of the rights of conscience, forcefully put it: "Conscience has rights because it has duties".

Certain tendencies in contemporary moral theology, under the influence of the currents of subjectivism and individualism just mentioned, involve novel interpretations of the relationship of freedom to the moral law, human nature and conscience, and propose novel criteria for the moral evaluation of acts. Despite their variety, these tendencies are at one in lessening or even denying the dependence of freedom on truth.

If we wish to undertake a critical discernment of these tendencies – a discernment capable of acknowledging what is legitimate, useful and of value in them, while at the same time pointing out their ambiguities, dangers and errors – we must examine them in the light of the fundamental dependence of freedom upon truth, a dependence which has found its clearest and most authoritative expression in the words of Christ: "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (Jn 8:32). (from Veritatis Splendor, 34)

We must know the truth, not just a mountain of academic, worldly doctrine. And we must preach the truth, not just obtain that worthless, so-called virtue that we are now supposed to believe is man’s to dispense to other men. Inasmuch as this is what the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Episcopacy has come to, we are in very bad shape doctrinally.

It is, at any rate, clear that St. John Paul II was in agreement with Cardinal J.H. Newman, that conscience and its rights are not rightly separated from the duties thereof. In other words, protesters are free to protest, but they are not their own sources of infallible moral law. They have a duty to remain law-abiding, and indeed to recognize an absolute moral law that is above and beyond their thoughts and sentiments—a moral Law that comes from on High. There is more to this than the worldly interpretation of it: “The evil Trump had the good protesters tear gassed, and look at Us, how virtuous We are, because we bash the evil Trump, and support the good protesters. Give us virtue points, please.” There exists a good God, Who is above mere human sentiments and emotions, above human egotism. He does not play the social virtue game. He has no need for it, because He possesses and dispenses real Virtues that are far superior to the phony, human version of virtue, that we are we are supposed to be so enthusiastic about seeking.

We are free to become rioters, but that freedom obtains neither righteousness nor virtue, because rioters become their own formulators of moral law. It is really a grave error to ascribe to looters, vandals, arsonists and anarchists, a holy Ordinance that belongs solely to God: that of bestowing Virtue on men that seek it. The Apostle Paul did not give such criminals so much credit. Neither did Saint John Paul II:

In teaching the existence of intrinsically evil acts, the Church accepts the teaching of Sacred Scripture. The Apostle Paul emphatically states: "Do not be deceived: neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the Kingdom of God" (1 Cor 6:9-10). (Veritatis Splendor, 81)

Rioters, thieves, robbers, murderers, looters and the like may have strong sentiments about the crimes that they commit. And they may interpret those sentiments as conferring moral superiority to themselves, and over their victims. They might really believe themselves morally superior. That doesn’t mean that they are, or that anyone should treat them as if they were.

Consider the point that James Rachels made in The Challenge of Cultural Relativism in 1978:

In some societies, people believe that the earth is flat. In other societies, such as our own, people believe the earth is (roughly) spherical. Does it follow from the mere fact that they disagree, that there is no “objective truth” in geography? Of course not; we would never draw such a conclusion, because we realize that, in their beliefs about the world, the members of some societies might simply be wrong. (Rachels)

The same observation applies to moral theology. Some people believe that their thoughts and sentiments are infallible formulators of authentic moral law. Others agree with St. John Paul II: that there are not many authentic moral laws, but only one: the one that God gives, and that we humans have a duty to discern and abide by. From the mere fact that people disagree on this, it does not follow that Episcopates or priests should preach that a President that takes seriously his Constitutional duty to establish justice and insure domestic tranquility is the devil incarnate.

We must realize that they are simply wrong, who see their thoughts and sentiments as infallible formulaters of moral law. Saint John Paul II preached against such errant and disastrous formulations of moral law, and We the Believers deserve that our Episcopates and priests fall in behind him. Inasmuch as They refuse to preach Veritatis Splendor, and Evangelium Vitae, They do not deserve to be Episcopates or priests.
_______________________________

Cited:

Pius XII. Optatissima Pax, 5. 1947. The Vatican

Rachels, James. The Challenge of Cultural Relativism. 1978. Republished in Ethics: History, Theory, and Contemporary Issues. Steven M. Cahn and Peter Markie. Oxford University Press. 2009. p. 699

St. John Paul II. Evangelium Vitae. 1995. The Vatican

St. John Paul II. Veritatis Splendor. 1993. The Vatican

St. Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologiæ. Second Part of the Second Part. Treatise on The Theological Virtues. Q.33 OF FRATERNAL CORRECTION (EIGHT ARTICLES). Article 4: Whether a man is bound to correct his prelate?

The Most Reverend Wilton D. Gregory. Archbishop Wilton Gregory Issues Statement on Planned Presidential Visit. Archdiocese of Washington. June 2, 2020